Fashion Designers Go Back To The Drawing Board!

Before the Internet and cameras, fashion design illustration was an absolutely essential part of presenting any design work. Today, there are far fewer fashion illustrators who make their living through drawing fashion, as so many rely on the computer.

But now it seems the art of fashion drawing is making a comeback in design studios throughout the world once more. Illustrating is and always will be an important ingredient in the fashion design you are trying to create.

Can you imagine how hard it would be to just use words to describe a design and expect co - workers to be able to make it? Drawing transcends language and is the perfect visual representation of any fashion design.

Having excellent drawing skills mean you can easily sketch your ideas onto paper to start any fashion production process.

Over the years in teaching I have seen many designers (who shall remain nameless!) create terrible sketches but end up with great designs, and great sketchers that are hopeless designers. However, as a general rule, you will need to know how to draw or sketch well enough to communicate your concept on paper without you having to explain what it is.

To try and get by without this skill is not a great idea, and will only come back to haunt you at a later date, as I have seen from experience with my own past students!

You WILL have to do well enough so that your co - worker can understand what you are attempting to communicate. A good sketch communicates an idea clearly and precisely.

Putting ideas quickly on paper is the only way to evaluate them to see if they are worth exploring further. Computer aided work is fabulous but thinking on paper with a good old-fashioned pencil is and always has been the best place to start.

Sketches are a quick way to create the basic composition of your illustration, and a quick pencil sketch just helps quickly record the likeness of what you have thought about in your head.

You may feel the desire to skip sketching and jump straight to the computer or work out your solutions as digital sketches. There is nothing wrong with that, especially for your own experimental work. There is no quicker method for exploring multiple visual solutions than sketching.

In a decade defined by the rise of digital platforms, there are growing signs that fashion is going back to the drawing board.

So you need to make sure your drawing skills are excellent if you want to be successful in the fashion industry in the next millennium!

So make sure you enrol in our course on fashion illustration.

Image courtesy of Kazue Shima